Poison Spiral
by Evil Riggs
Summary: Later in life, Naruto Uzumaki is deployed to a distant industrial town on cryptic orders. In a city torn between warring clans and rotten with secrets, Naruto slowly finds himself coming unraveled. For those who like a bit of noir with your ninjutsu. An experiment in style and update frequency. Rated M for blood, sweat, tears, and other assorted bodily fluids.
1. 1

**POISON SPIRAL**

**1**

It goes almost without saying that Daigo Shimura is not a good man. There are those in the world whose basic appearance stuns the senses with its utter lack of guile—whose exteriors reflect perfectly their inner lives.

Consider, then, Daigo: Fifty-two years old, fat as a sake keg and no taller than the same. Sallow of skin, runny of eyes, weak of chin, and with a mouth so wide he was taunted with, "Frog!" for most of his childhood. A fungus-like button of a nose—webbed over with broken blood vessels and scaly growths. Hands as mottled as an old woman's. Teeth the color of tea that's been left to steep for far too long.

Daigo does not bathe. Or, rather, he bathes so infrequently that each instance remains in him a singular and crystalline memory. He consistently trails a wave of dry, dusty stench—though often mixed with a sour-sweet mist of whatever cologne he's come across in his trade.

In short: A small, shabby, pestilent man with all the mien of something found squirming beneath a rock. Unlike all those whose rough appearances belie a soft heart, Daigo is exactly as he appears—just as repellant inside as out.

However: Though he may be ugly and crass and essentially false-natured in every way possible, Daigo Shimura is not stupid. Daigo is as successful a man as can be found within almost ten square kilometers. Even in the city just over the rocky horizon, men speak of Daigo with respect and admiration.

A little over twenty years ago, Daigo staked out a prime parcel of land on the Chiba Hills footpath, right before it merges onto the highway to Tokusei. Within a few months, he threw together a rambling structure where the lot met the road. Not quite a hut and not quite a shack, the place became a well-visited stop on the way into the city.

On paper, Daigo is a restaurateur, pawnbroker, and "seller of curiosities." In reality, this means: serving cold beer and sake on the porch of his establishment; dealing in stolen and illicit goods; and slinging dope. To his credit, Daigo is known for providing the highest-quality opiates around Tokusei. Though small, his land is one of the most important hubs of the region's booming drug trade.

Yes. _Quite _booming.

Daigo has killed four men over the winding course of his life. Not an especially high number in times like these, but in his heart Shimura knows that three of the men did not deserve to die. The fourth died when he attempted to put a knife through Daigo's ribs, only to get a broken sake bottle in the throat as recompense. Daigo still bears the jagged scars.

On the few occasions he has pored back over his life with any seriousness, Daigo has come to realize just how far he has drifted from polite and normal society. There is no returning there, even if he never really belonged in the first place. He cannot deny that there is something about him that has become innately monstrous.

No. Daigo Shimura may be abhorrent to behold, but he's no idiot. One can't be, if one is to survive in the game as long as he has. He's picked up quite a few skills over the years. Even as his body has betrayed him, Daigo's memory is as sharp as ever. His cleverness remains.

For instance, he knows trouble the moment he sees it. He can smell the winds shifting as readily as any slick-backed rat, ready to bail from a sinking ship ten minutes before the leaks even begin to spring.

And on this hot, still, stagnant afternoon, Daigo Shimura begins to smell trouble something fierce. It comes wafting off a towheaded silhouette as it ambles down the footpath in the distance.


	2. 2

**2**

As the sun has risen, the glare off the chalk-white road has become ever more intolerable. Dust hangs about him like a crystal fog. He can taste the stuff even through the elaborate layers of cloth wrapped about his nose and mouth. All gritty and caustic. Sweat oozes over his temples and paints his exposed skin with streaks of corpse-colored grime. What a lovely mission this has turned out to be.

Five weeks he's been on the road. Five weeks and much of a continent. Five weeks and multiple border crossings. Five weeks—and now he's beyond borders, out where the frontiers are still being carved out and conquered. Five weeks—and he's half-sure that he's lost, wandering in circles through the mummified ass-crack of the world.

He tilts the brim of his hat back and squints against the rancid glint of the sun. About the footpath twist stands of scrub juniper and spiny bushes. Piñon pines grasp upward from the tangle like broken hands. Among this stunted forest rise outcroppings of stone the same color as an iron tool left to the elements—a grimy, halfhearted red. It's the sort of color that brings to mind battlefield infections.

None of it—not a single goddamn bush—provides any shade. What a worthless fucking country.

The sky is cloudless but for the billows of dust as they dance and ripple above the path. The sun is absolute.

Eyes dipping back down, he sees the hint of a turn in the path ahead. A leftward jag that leads off deeper into the hills, obscured by floating sand and copses of sad little trees.

Yet more road. Yet more empty, forgotten wilderness.

What a goddamn joke.

And yet: His pace slows. He squints. There. Something sits at the elbow-bend in the road. Some kind of nonsensical clapboard building stands sentinel at the side of the path, so surrounded by gnarled trees that it almost looks abandoned. Even this far out, he can see the recent paint job on the sign hanging above the shack's front door. Not just some vacant squat, then.

All right. Well, then. It's better than nothing.

Naruto Uzumaki shrugs hard, pulling down and adjusting the straps of his increasingly simpatico traveling pack. Parched and exhausted and fed up as he is, he manages to summon a bit more hustle from his aching calves. With any luck, there will be someone in that shit-pile up ahead who knows where the fuck he is.


	3. 3

**3**

For a destination set squarely in the armpit of the world, the sign ahead strikes Naruto as needlessly over-elaborate. In expertly painted yellow calligraphy:

GRANDPA DAIGO'S  
Most Wonderful Traveler's Rest  
COLD BEVERAGES!  
PROSPECTING SUPPLIES  
And all possible sundries!

And then, laid out in a far more unsure red slash:

_and yes, we have bait!_

Huh. He really doesn't get that earnest sense from the place unfolding before him. A kind of nightmare warren of shacks pressing upon shacks, until it's damned near big as a house. Yellow-green banners flutter beside its oversized entrance. Half-hidden among the trees is a swept lot populated by almost a dozen rough chairs. Above them stretches a flapping canvas awning. Wind chimes clunk laconically from the misshapen eaves.

There is . . . _something_ standing on the threshold between the shop and a set of steps leading into the place's front yard. A horrible little man. His red-rimmed eyes scan over Naruto with something that mixes curiosity with consternation. Huge lips bulge and ripple with the obvious hunk of chaw stuck in them. He wears a fraying black coat and a bowler hat the color of river sediment.

Naruto shudders. Goddamn frontier people. It's as if—at some mysterious point—he crossed over some invisible line that divides the world of the sane from a country of lunatics.

He stops in the well-trod front yard, dust trailing him like a cape. He tips his hat to the little man.

"Um . . ." Naruto begins to speak, realizes his mouth is still mummified, and then tugs angrily at the wrappings about his face. His unruly road-beard sprouts in copper tangles. "Uh, hi. You sell supplies?"

The little man grins. The sight is awful on an almost existential level.

"Oh, yes. Yes, indeed. Ain't a thing you need that I ain't got." He descends the flight of steps in a series of arachnid leaps. "But first, you must have a terrible thirst from all this heat. May I pour you a glass of spring-cooled beer? Or perhaps some chilled sake?"

"Maybe later," Naruto says. "Right now, I need a goddamn map. And if it pleases you, I could use some directions, too."

Such a look of delight crosses the little man's features that Naruto feels a tingle of revulsion in response. The shopkeeper leaps back up the stairs, beckoning as he goes.

"Come! Come in. Come in!" he says. The little man lopes through the front door and into the depths of the shop.

Against his better judgment, Naruto goes in after him.


	4. 4

**4**

Naruto can't exactly name the smell that strikes him as he strolls into Grandpa Daigo's Most Wonderful Traveler's Rest. A kind of metallic funk, as if copper has found some way to go rancid. Under it are hints of candle wax, rotten fruit, gunpowder, and . . . _something_. Naruto sniffs. It's something else entirely. Something weirdly familiar.

He has little time to ponder the issue, attention snapping to the strange chaos of the shop unfolding about him. Stacks of square black prospecting pans lay about nearly every surface. Rugs of crimson and aqua and gold tumble about one another in the corners. Reams of paper and vellum share shelf space with bottles promising the cure for hemorrhoids. Old appliances glower from mismatched piles. Crates of all shapes and sizes seem to make up the entire back wall of the place.

Scattered about the clapboard walls are a series of small, strange lamps. Each is a glass orb about the size of a handball, set into a brass casement. Every one of them casts a halo of blue-green light. The quivering, elongated shadows they summon set Naruto's teeth on edge.

Even as the shopkeeper scuttles deeper into his domain, Naruto stops in his tracks and leans closer to examine the closest of the lamps. Upon further examination, Naruto finds that each globe contains a single jet of flame, which rises from the sconce itself. A bit like oil lamps, then.

. . . Except oil lamps don't burn the color of carnival sweets. Nor do they smell vaguely of . . . well. He can't exactly put his finger on it. That _something_, familiar and yet damnably elusive.

"Weird," Naruto says.

"Ah," the shopkeeper says. "These are new to you, yes?" The little man's voice is a growling croak, so rough it sounds as if he started smoking in childhood. On reflection, this seems likely.

Smiling like an oni, the shopkeeper leaps over the to the lamp, deftly unscrews its glass casing, and sticks his hand into the flame. He turns his gnarled digits through the oddly colored fire. Even after some thirty seconds, nothing happens to the man's liver-spotted hand.

Naruto nods calmly. "So. Cold fire. Neat."

"We call it 'ghost flame' round these parts," the shopkeeper says. He gently sets the globe in its casing. "One o' the many advantages of livin' in the shadow o' Dokusei."

Naruto starts. The sudden spasm shakes a fine misting of dust off his coat. "You just said 'Tokusei,' right?"

The shopkeeper's face reddens. "Oh! Uh. Yes, as it were. That was just a bit of a local joke."

"Really."

"Well, you know. I guess some of the local lads figured out how easy it is to mix 'Tokusei' up with 'Dokusei,' especially when they've been drinkin'," the little man says. "Don't really mean nothin'."

"That's . . . _interesting_," Naruto says.

Dokusei. _Toxic. Virulent_. That certainly bodes well.

Whatever. Fuck knows why the town founders chose "Tokusei" anyway. You can read it a half-dozen ways, and yeah, "good fortune" is one of them, but . . .

"Anyway!" Naruto says decisively. He shakes his head, dust raining off the brim of his hat. No time to dawdle. "That's great. Exactly where I'm headed. So—tell me what you know about the place."


	5. 5

**5**

"Ah! Chompin' at the bit to make yer mark, eh?" the little man says. He winks with an eyelid like a bat's wing. "You come to prospect, then? Trawl the hills in search o' phantom stone?"

Naruto gazes levelly at him. "No," he says.

"Goin' to find work in the city, then? Work the mines? Maybe get hired on at a forge or factory? I hear the stockyard's hirin'—"

"Yeah. Something like that," Naruto says, cutting him off.

"Oh ho, he plays the mysterious stranger!" says the little man. "Well, fair enough on ya'. A man's got a right to his privacy, I suppose. Now, what was it you were wantin', again?"

Naruto's eyes narrow. "Information. About Tokusei. I'm guessing the city's not far, then?"

The shopkeeper nods and smiles. Naruto notices black filaments of tobacco stuck among the man's vile teeth. "Sure," he says. "Sure. But that bein' said, all things are for _sale_ here. _Sir_."

Grimacing, Naruto stuffs one hand into the lining of his coat. His fingers spider through the legion of pockets and pouches sewn into the garment's lining. He emerges with a toenail-sized gold nugget, looking for all the world like an old coin crushed by some unfathomably heavy object.

"This enough?" he says. Naruto proffers the chunk of gold. It sits in the middle of his palm like a dirt-caked panacea. Irritation prickles up and down the back of his neck.

Before Naruto can even blink, the little man snatches the nugget from his hand. He examines it with one squinty eye, and then pockets it wordlessly. No biting, Naruto notices. No amateur, then.

The little man smiles horribly and says, "Well, that's more like it. The name's Daigo, stranger. Daigo Shimura. Been livin' around these parts for goin' on twenty-five years." He spreads his arms as if in magnanimous greeting. "And yer right—Tokusei's less than twenty kilometers away. Seventeen-point-four, if you want to get technical.

"In any event, ya' need only follow the same foot-road ya' been on. In about a kilometer, it'll drop you onto a bigger highway. Goes all the way to Tokusei. Impossible to miss it."

Daigo nods, clearly pleased with himself.

Naruto's shoulders sag with relief . . . and then knot into boulders with frustration.

"Hey," he says. "That's hardly a gold chip's worth of information! I could've figured that out on my own, man."

Holding up his hands and attempting a grotesque imitation of obsequiousness, Daigo says, "Ah, yes, yes. This ain't a problem. You want to know more about ol' Tokusei." Another awful nightmare-wink. "So. Whadyawannaknow?"


	6. 6

**6**

"You know a guy called Daisuke Kurosawa?" the stranger says.

Daigo frowns so deeply that it feels like part of his face is going to slough off. He says, "What do you want with Daisuke Kurosawa?"

Trouble. Daigo knew it—just like he always does. The man standing before him reeks of trouble. Well, that and the sharp, close miasma of someone who's been too long on the trail.

It's the stranger's turn to smile. His oversized canines shine in the blue-green murk. "Hey now," he says. "I'm the one who's paying for answers. I take it that you know the guy? Daisuke?"

Daigo realizes that his tobacco has long since gone mushy and sour, sitting like a wad of day-old vomit between his teeth and tongue. It's been thirty years and gone since he last vomited from bad tobacco, but even now the experience leaves his stomach feeling greasy and abused.

"I don't personally know him, stranger," Daigo says. He makes his way over to his sales desk—an old, irregular sheet of tin resting atop a pair of sawhorses. A moth-nibbled red sheet gives the illusion that the contraption is an actual piece of furniture—an old trick Daigo picked up from Godo, Daigo's old griftin' mentor. Also the first man he ever killed. "But there ain't a man in Tokusei that ain't _heard _of him. You know what I mean?"

"No."

Shaking his head, Daigo sighs, "You ain't playin' me, now?"

"No."

"Interestin'."

Daigo shuffles behind his "desk" and locates the battered spittoon at its feet. A pair of bright green bottleflies explores its rim. He takes aim and—drawing on decades of practice—launches a meteor of chaw at the receptacle. There follows a sticky _splud_, and all that remains of one of the bottleflies is a sepsis-colored dribble at the spittoon's edge. Daigo nods in satisfaction.

He can't help but eye the stranger as he goes about his task. Greasy spicules of blonde hair poke from beneath his wide-brimmed hat. An Eastern hat, Daigo figures—something they'd probably wear out in the Lands o' Fire or Mist. At one time, it was probably an immaculate snow white, its fine inlay a coruscating pattern of red, orange, and gold. Now, the hat's more or less the same color as the rest of the stranger's clothes—a mottled patchwork of ashen grays, blacks, and browns.

The stranger, clearly trying to play it cool, stands and stares with eyes like open tide pools. Nonetheless, he rocks back and forth on his heels, apparently trying his best not to start fidgeting.

Double-interestin'.

Daigo says, "Well, I don't know what you want with a man you don't know nothin' about, but I can tell you a little bit. Daisuke's one o' the Underbosses for Clan Kurosawa. He and his brothers all split things equally once Old Boss Kurosawa passed a few years back. They control about half o' the forges and factories in Tokusei, and more or less all the minin'. Old Boss Kurosawa were the one who figured out how to mine phantom stone, see?"

The stranger nods, but Daigo can tell that almost none of this registers with him. What a dude—don't know nothin' about the town he's travelin' to or the man he's supposedly got business with.

Aye—trouble in the flesh, no doubt. After all, if Daigo can believe the rumors flitting about . . .

Well. No need to muddy the waters. Blondie here ain't paying for rumors. Daigo presses his palms together, puts on the face of a much-aggrieved elder businessman, and continues.


	7. 7

**7**

"What _do _ya' know about Tokusei, stranger?" Daigo asks.

"Listen," Naruto says. "If I want to make town by nightfall, I need to get going soon. So maybe cut the interrogation and just tell me what you know, okay?"

It's bad form, letting the shopkeeper see his irritation like this. Five weeks away from other nin have apparently blunted his instincts. Ah, well—Naruto never has been much for subtlety. Even now, his favorite forms of misdirection involve tits and explosions.

All the same, every second Naruto spends in this place magnifies a marrow-deep desire to go scrub with steel wool.

Somewhere outside, a gust of wind throws grit against the shop's walls. A sound like the scurrying of hundreds of hidden insects. Ghost flames dance within their globes.

At last, Daigo blinks slowly and says, "No need to get sandy, stranger. Difficult to know what to tell a man when he ain't forthcomin' about his intentions."

Naruto inhales, road dust and rotten lumber thick in his nostrils. He says, "Yeah. Yeah. Fair enough. Guess I'm just tired. Sick of the trail."

"Gets to the best of us, stranger."

Though Naruto sincerely doubts that the shopkeeper is counted among "the best of us," he nods and says, "Honestly, most of what I know about Tokusei I've picked up from rumors I heard on the road. I know the whole region's a colony of the Earth Daimyo—"

"On paper, at least," Daigo says. Something about this pleases him to a degree that Naruto finds unpleasant.

"Right. And it's run by a bunch of mining companies or something."

"Just two, really."

". . . And that it's cursed."

One of Daigo's eyebrows rises like a curious centipede. "Well, that there is debatable, stranger," he says. "Lots o' folk believe that. Then again, lots o' folk believe the stars are the gods' spilled festival rice. Don't make it true."

This is pointless. Whatever this guy's angle is, Naruto isn't interested in playing into it. He scratches at the oily beard running riot over his chin. He says, "Guess I better find out for myself, then."

He pivots on his heel, eager to scurry back out into the sun that was bedeviling him just minutes before. Naruto hesitates. He turns to the impassive shopkeeper and says, "You got any food in this place? I'd punch a nun for some decent grub."

"Oh, plenty. Take your pick," the little man says. He waves a hand across the shop, to a set of shelves half-cast in shadow. Sitting upon them are rows and columns and feckless piles of cans. Most are accessorized with thick coats of dust. One label reads—in grand, bold characters—"CATFISH IN SPECIAL GRAVY!"

Naruto's stomach trembles, flops, and turns in on itself.

He's no stranger to canned food, of course. Early in his journey, Naruto sustained himself almost entirely on canned peaches—at least until the resultant diarrhea left him so dehydrated that he lost two days recovering at an alpine way station. Further proof that even S-ranked jōnin make mistakes.

"Yeah, I'll pass," Naruto says. "You sure you don't have anything else? Like instant noodles or something?"

The little man gazes at him blankly.

Before the shopkeeper can try to sell him anything else, Naruto says, ". . . Right, then. Well, I really should get going. Thanks for the, uh. The . . . information?"

As Naruto again turns to leave, Daigo hops closer and—with a voice like a sibilant nail file—says, "Are ya' certain that there ain't any . . . _other _needs I might help you in fillin'?"

"Naw, I'm good. You take care or whatever."

"There are items in our stockroom that might interest you, sir. Why, _anything _might be back there and available to you. Anything at all."

The hustle—and perhaps the continued thought of processed catfish—pours bile into Naruto's gorge. Just as he prepares to give Daigo Shimura one final brush-off, he hears voices through the open front door of the shop. A pair of satisfied chortles wafts in with the hot breeze.

The sound of boots resounds on the planks outside.


	8. 8

**8**

They come through the front door all at once, shoulder-to-shoulder, jostling like a pack of merry teenagers out for a night on the town.

Except, none are actually teenagers. Not one of the men who enter Daigo's shop appears younger than thirty. Two of them look how Naruto feels: dirty, bedraggled, hollow-cheeked, unshaven, muss-haired, red-eyed, and generally disagreeable. Each wears a cheap hemp tunic and short trousers, gray rope wrapped about their hips as belts. A feral jumpiness sits behind their scowls.

Between these men slouches a third, who stands almost as wide as the other two put together. His hair is pulled back in an old-fashioned top-knot, as if he's a samurai arriving home two or three centuries too late. His tunic's of a better make than the others—black silk, with a real leather belt and silver buckle. Hints of tattoos creep about his upper arms and shoulders. Beneath a pock-marked brow, his mouth twists in a cruel little smile. He breathes in a series of perturbed, nasal snorts.

It takes Naruto a moment to recognize the weapons each man carries. He knows that he's seen some variation on them before, but these are designs that he doesn't quite recognize. The two hangers-on wear them in rough leather thongs slung over their backs—scuffed, wooden bases connected onto long, black metal cylinders.

It hits him: They're muskets. Unlike any musket Naruto's ever seen, but they fit the bill all the same.

The big man in the middle has no long gun, instead bearing what appear to be a pair of pistols in holsters attached to his hips. The grips on each are polished and inlaid with jagged copper designs.

Naruto finds himself nonplussed. He honestly can't remember the last time he saw men actually _using _this kind of thing. Almost every gun he's ever seen—especially handguns—has been hanging in a museum or dusty private collection.

Firearms. Huh. Must be hunters or something.

As he steps into the shop's interior, the big man lets loose a barking shout. "Oy, Daigo! You'd best have our shit ready and waitin', or we're gonna start countin' fingers and toes! You hear me, you creepy old—" He trails off, gaze finally drifting to the stranger standing beside the shopkeeper.

All three men stop in their tracks. Bleary eyes dart over Naruto, taking him in head to toe. He feels a bit like a piece of livestock. At last, the lead newcomer cracks a restrained smile. His teeth compete with Daigo's in terms of loathsomeness.

"Hey now, old-timer," the big man says. "What do we got here?"


	9. 9

**9**

Naruto has a bad feeling about this.

Then again, he's had a bad feeling almost from the moment he was assigned this godsforsaken mission—one that's only become thicker and queasier since he set foot in Daigo's shop. Maybe he should give these guys the benefit of the doubt.

Even after more than a decade, his scalp still prickles in anticipation of Kakashi's hand colliding with the back of his skull. His or Jiraiya's—gods rest the both of 'em.

_Trust your gut, dumbass._

The old man—or at least the ghost-memory of his deeply inscribed training—is right. Naruto has seen the smile sported by the big man before. It's the kind of smile that presages an extended period of bad business. Naruto thinks of it as the sort of smile shared between hyenas as they circle a dying antelope.

"Hello, Ichikawa," Daigo says. He raises a hand in tentative greeting. "If y'all will give me a few minutes, I have your merchandise ready in my stockroom. This fella's on his way out."

Naruto nods vigorously, dislodging a desiccated pine needle from the brim of his hat. He says, "Sure was! Uh, nice to, uh, meet you folks. Or something. See you about."

Before Naruto can take a single step toward the sudden, glorious freedom of the chalk footpath, the big man begins making his way further into the shop. He spasmodically flexes his fingers as he comes. His dark eyes twitch in their sockets.

"Wait wait wait," Ichikawa says. "Who's this dude again?"

Daigo shrugs. He says, "Like you said, Ichikawa—just another traveler. Off to make his fortune in Dokusei, like every other dude who comes up this trail."

Naruto realizes that the big man is standing only a few paces away, leaning forward in a manner that he thinks is supposed to be intimidating. "That right?" Ichikawa says.

"Yeah. Sure. Definitely. I've got business in the city. So, you know. . . excuse me while I get on my way," Naruto says.

"What's in the pack?"

"I'm sorry?"

"I said: what's in the fuckin' pack?" His grin is like a moldering graveyard—every tooth gray, crooked, and sinking into gums like soft loam. The other two men titter.

Shrugging, Naruto says, "Just trail supplies, man. Ichikawa, right?" He extends his hand in a hopeless attempt at ameliorating the situation.

"Did I give you permission to speak my name, greenhorn?!" The big man barks the words like a battle mantra, as if this has been the opening to any number of dust-ups. "Cuz I sure as hell don't remember doin' so. You best be openin' that pack up as a way o' apologizin'."

Naruto lets loose a defeated sigh. Eyes half-lidded, he shakes his head slowly. Well, it was a good run. He strongly suspects that this is where the trail ends and the mission—such as it is—truly begins.


	10. 10

**10**

There's always a way to salvage a bad situation. The easy play here would be to hand the pack over, shrug, and call it a day.

Unfortunately, the pack contains not only his remaining rations, changes of clothes, and bedroll, but also a small arsenal of kunai, reams of explosive paper, the scroll tube detailing the mission, and a well-thumbed copy of _Saucy Nin in Chains_. It may just be a spank book, but it's _his _spank book, goddammit.

"Listen. Guys," Naruto says. "Let's not go down this road, okay? It's really not going to end well for you."

Ichikawa chortles and lets one huge palm drift toward the pistols at his hips. A forefinger slips out and caresses the well-oiled wood of one of their grips. He says, "That so, greenhorn? You hear that, boys? Fancy man here thinks he can take us."

The other men make noises that Naruto thinks are supposed to be laughter, but sound more like a series of yipping barks.

Naruto holds up his hands and tries to look as nonthreatening and bemused as possible. "C'mon, man. That's, uh—that's not really what I meant. There's nothing on me worth taking. The pack's about eighty percent dirty underwear last time I checked. That reminds me—you know a good laundry in town? I swear the sand in my shorts has sand in its shorts, hahaha!" His attempt at laughter isn't any more successful than the others'.

Holding his off hand to his heart, Ichikawa flutters his eyelids and says, "Now, that's just insultin', it is. Who said anything about takin'? We're just curious folk, is all. Don't like just any kind o' riffraff comin' into our city. We're just concerned citizens, we are."

The big man's hand comes to a rest atop the pistol. Calloused fingers curl downward. Naruto experiences an almost philosophical moment of despair at humankind's inherent stupidity.

"As I recall," a rasping voice says, "you ain't welcome in town anymore, Ichikawa. Seems to me that Boss Ozu had a pretty strong opinion on that matter."

Daigo Shimura shuffles into view, hands constricted about one another. There is no fear in his watery eyes—only a species of deep, exhausted annoyance. He pointedly does not put himself between the two men, instead hanging back more than two arm-lengths away. "Also, I'd rather appreciate it if you gents take this outside," Daigo says.

"Stay out of this, old-timer!" Ichikawa says, spittle all but leaping from his lips.

Time to get this shit over with. Naruto says, "Actually, I think he's got a point. Come on. This isn't the place to have a proper conversation anyway." He executes a halfhearted nod toward the shopkeeper. "No offense."

Daigo just shrugs and smiles, clearly grateful.

Ichikawa, however, is less than enthused at the prospect. He says, "No, no, no. I know your type, greenhorn. You're apt to run, ain't ya'? Go dashin' off once those nice boots o' yours hit the dirt. No—we're gonna have us a look in that pack, one way or another."

Man. This guy. Naruto figures he can probably use a quick decoy technique to slip around these idiots and be on his way—but that won't guarantee they won't try to bushwhack him farther down the trail. Besides: this is genuinely starting to piss him off.

"Fine. You go first, okay? I'll come right after. You can even have one of your friends stay back and make sure I don't bolt out the back door. Fair?"

Ichikawa considers the offer, nods, and says with a growl, "You try anything funny and we will cut ya' down like an old dog. Ken?"

As if waking from an uncomfortable sleep, one of Ichikawa's followers perks up and says, "Aye, boss?"

"Make sure the greenhorn here don't try to slip out the back. Once he's in the yard, come out. Ya' know what to do."

Ken nods a little uncertainly, but sidles up to the doorway all the same. Without a further word, Ichikawa snorts, turns on his heel, and stomps out of Daigo's shop. He gestures to the other man to follow. For a moment, both are silhouetted in the sharp white sunlight.

The vacation's officially over, Naruto thinks. He tips his hat to Daigo, briefly locks eyes with the man at the door, and walks out of the shop to complete his conversation these highly charming gentlemen.

By the time he steps down off the stairs, their guns are already in their hands.


	11. 11

**11**

Oh, but this is fine. Aye. Very fine. Straight loverly, it is.

Benzo Ichikawa woke up this morning with a headache and bad case of junk-itch. The sensation crawled up and down his spine like an irritable scorpion. He barely even made it to the chamber pot before his bowels released in a series of groaning spasms.

Hiroshi and Ken were even worse off—fully sick with their need, rolling in their bunks, sweating copiously, near to the point of hallucination. Ichikawa promised the both of them that they would score today, even though there's barely enough ryō in the squat's stash to buy a box of rice—much less a ball of dope.

All the same, Ichikawa climbed Black Tooth Point an hour after dawn, sending up a flare in the hopes that old man Daigo would see it down south. After almost fifteen increasingly tense minutes, an answering flare rose like a manmade star in the gloaming. Shimura knew the score. He would have the merchandise ready when they arrived.

Ichikawa knows he isn't the smartest man in the world. He may continue to chuff and bluster like a proper yakuza, but the eight months since Boss Ozu put a bounty on his head and drove him out of Dokusei have been humbling ones. Something about sleeping in a shack and shitting in a tin can tends to erode a man's trust in his own instincts.

But that don't mean he ain't a man without a bit o' grit still in him. Benzo Ichikawa may be little more than a road agent these days, but that doesn't mean he can't muster a bit of pride in his work. And though he might not have the coin to pay Daigo for his opium, Ichikawa's got plenty of guns at his disposal. Bullets are their own sort of currency.

But now . . . _now_! This is some fuckin' luck, right here.

Right when he was readying to draw down on Daigo—ensuring his exile not only from Dokusei, but the whole damned region—Ichikawa runs into some dumb greenhorn fresh off the trail. Might not look like much now under all that road grime, but this dude's clearly come out of some money. Nobody wears a coat and hat like that without some sort of scratch to back it up.

So here they are: Ichikawa and Hiroshi stand in the front yard of Daigo's shitheap of a way station, sun swatting down on the backs of their heads. Hiroshi holds his scattergun with unsure fingers, one eyelid twitching. Ichikawa's already slid one of his wheel-guns out, thumb resting on the gear behind its cylinder. Just inside the door to the shop, Ken lingers like a junk-sick ghost.

The stranger—this greenhorn in his wide-brimmed hat and formerly white coat—steps off the last of the stairs and into the yard. Ichikawa can tell the man ain't happy about the situation. Blue eyes skip between the men in the yard, clearly trying to figure out how to play the unplayable.

Fuckin' greenhorns. Men like this have been tryin' to shit on Ichikawa his entire life. Ain't so pretty when the sandal's on the other foot—is it boy?

Time to earn some dope.


	12. 12

**12**

A moment after the stranger's feet hit hardpan, Ken comes bounding down the stairs, all wide-eyed and eager. He leaps off the side of the staircase and goes skidding across the dirt, already fumbling at the scattergun in his scabbard.

Ichikawa lets loose a pained sigh. It's a good thing he and Hiroshi have the dude covered, or else Ken's flailing might have seriously queered the deal. They'll have to sit down and have another talk about this—after they've scored, of course. Nimble fingers and a whole heap of enthusiasm, Ken, but far from the ablest hand with a gun. Now that he actually has a future to consider, Ichikawa toys with the idea that Ken might need a new calling.

Ah—but there. There we go. Ken's got his scattergun out, barrel wavering as he brings it to bear on the stranger.

The traveler just stands there, looking gormless and defeated. He raises a hand and scratches at the red-gold tangle covering his chin. His sullen inaction drives shards of frustration under Ichikawa's skin. A person really should have the wherewithal to know when he's being robbed.

The dude attempts a smile and says, "Now, I have a great idea! You guys and I should walk into town together. We can get to know each other on the way, and then I'll buy you all a round at the first tavern we hit. No grudges—just good times all around. What do you say?"

Ichikawa raises his pistol and slips a finger over its trigger. He says, "I got a better idea. You give us everything except yer clothes. Purse, pack, whatever you got hidin' under that fancy coat o' yours. You do that and we don't put a whole cylinder o' bullets in yer skull."

"I really can't do that, man."

"I beg to differ, greenhorn. You see this here pistol?" Ichikawa tilts his wrist, letting the light shimmy down the wheel-gun's barrel. "I pulled it off o' someone just like you. Came from a dude who thought he were pretty smart—just like you."

(In point of fact, Ichikawa lifted the pistols from the Ozu Barracks' weapons locker the night before he slipped out of town for good. One thing you learn quick as a yakuza—never let the truth get in the way of a good story.)

"Point is," Ichikawa says, "if you don't get a little more cooperative here soon, I'll kill you the same way I killed that particular nancy-man. Drop the pack, stranger."

Can he really afford to waste this dude? Daigo will talk, of course. There he is now—peeking out of his front door like a rodent. Having a reputation as a bandit is one thing, but Ichikawa suspects that graduating to murder could rouse some mighty unpleasant folk back in Dokusei.

The glare of the sun and snowballing junk sickness are making Ichikawa's bones ache like they're full of broken glass. Hiroshi and Ken glance back at him compulsively, both shivering despite the pulsating afternoon heat. Daigo watches from his spot behind the doorjamb, face impassive and lips working at a fresh twist of chaw.

The stranger takes off his hat. The gesture reveals a lunatic mane of blonde hair. He holds the hat between his hands, examining the fine stitching beneath its patina of filth.

"Fine," the dude says. "Fine fine fine. Fuck it."

The stranger half-turns and lightly tosses the hat to the foot of the shop's steps. A maneuver far more graceful than necessary. He gestures to Daigo and says, "Hey. Watch my hat for me, okay?"

Daigo nods uncertainly.

The stranger slaps his palms together with a sound like a cracking whip. His eyes train on Ichikawa and his crew with glacial displeasure.

Wait. This is . . . what _is _this? Ichikawa can feel sweat begin to seep from his hairline. Suddenly, something's not right about all of this—and for the life of him, he doesn't know what it is.

Without looking back, the greenhorn calls back to the shopkeeper once more. "And another thing! You got any coffins in that stockroom of yours, chief?"

When Daigo says nothing—just goggles at the whole scene like a pithed amphibian—the stranger lets loose a snarling chuckle and says, "Because you might get want to get a couple of 'em ready."

Oh, shit.

Ichikawa's finger spasms against the wheel-gun's trigger. The pistol bucks in his hand. A black-powder roar punches against his ears. The sound echoes and echoes over the scrub-crusted face of the Chiba Hills.

Ichikawa blinks.

The stranger is gone. Absolutely nothing of him remains. All that indicates he even existed in the first place is a faint twist of white dust, already settling back to earth.


	13. 13

**13**

He'd almost feel bad for them, if they weren't such obvious fucking assholes.

After all, the displacement jutsu is so basic it's barely even considered one. It is literally taught to children barely old enough to tie their own bootlaces.

And yet, these idiots fell for it without Naruto even breaking a sweat.

He stands balanced in the upper branches of one of the piñon trees looming about Daigo's shop. Naruto sniffs at the sharp, gelatinous scent of pine sap. Dry needles scrape against his palms. No more than five or six meters below, the three bandits blink and cast about—looking for all the world like they've just been visited by a ghost.

Naruto figures he has five, maybe ten seconds before even these dim lamps catch on. No time to consider strategy. In his head, he flicks irritably from jutsu to jutsu, technique to technique. He finds that—even though the highwaymen put him in an intensely foul mood—he doesn't actually want to kill them. It'd be like swatting flies with a bomb.

Without really thinking about it, Naruto hunches forward and slips the travelling pack from his shoulders. He stows it against the tree's scraggly trunk. His eyes never leave Ichikawa and his companions. Naruto comes to a decision.

Well. The classics are almost always the best, anyway.

The hand seals are barely even necessary. He's been practicing the technique for so long that he could do it in his sleep—that is, if chakra-crafting didn't require conscious intention. All the same, Naruto's fingers and palms dart through a flurry of movements. He feels that familiar warm charge crackle through his pressure points, and—

_He splits._

He splits—

_one  
two_  
_THREE times_.

All sensations triple. Three new sets of nostrils take in the acrid spice of the trees.

Suddenly, he gazes on the world through six new eyes. New angles emerge—lower, higher, farther away. All at once, Naruto knows the disorienting, spectacular excitement of becoming _they_.

Within this division, Naruto feels something well up in him like a geyser. As each new perspective cracks apart and solidifies—settling into place like something molten poured into a strange new mold—he is overwhelmed with elation. Every one of his hearts pumps with the pure, triumphant joy of joining the fight.

They fall as one.


	14. 14

**14**

For Daigo, this is how it goes down:

The moment the stranger vanishes, the last piece of the puzzle falls into place. Daigo instantly realizes the true scope of the situation—not to mention just how badly this is all going to turn out for Ichikawa and his crew. The shopkeeper feels his entire body go rigid with sick anticipation.

And then people begin to fall from the sky.

Three men leap from behind the edge of Daigo's vision, launching themselves from somewhere above the building. The bold perfection of their descent is all the confirmation Daigo needs.

Shinobi. Of course it's fucking shinobi.

Daigo has less than a moment to wonder where the stranger's comrades were hiding all this time. A half-moment more to consider how absurd that notion actually is. Less than the length of a blink to realize that they aren't other men at all.

All three look exactly like the traveler himself. A trio of flawless copies, hair and long coats streaming behind them in the sirocco wind. Utterly identical—down to the same mud stains speckling the edges of their coats.

Daigo's fingers curl tight over the doorframe. Splinters dig at his fingers.

Ichikawa and his lackeys don't even have time to react as the stranger's doppelgangers burst forth. Each landing summons a cloud of dust. The disheveled figures are moving the moment they impact, fanning out fast as hounds at the hunt.

Out to Daigo's left, one of the doubles zigzags over the chalk yard as if on ice skates. He bobs and sweeps his way behind Ken, then strikes in a towheaded blur. There is a moist snapping sound, loud as a loosed cork. Ken's ankle suddenly rests at a physically impossible angle. His eyes pull wide as platters. The sound he produces as he collapses is thin and high and not entirely human. He never even gets a shot off with his scattergun.

Hiroshi, however, manages to at least squeeze off a single fusillade. A second version of the stranger—as if possessed by some wild precognition—is so far away from the spray of birdshot it's almost laughable. The double careens out to the edge of the yard, executes a turn so smooth it defies the concept of inertia, and comes skidding back. A storm of hands and palms thunders against the back of Hiroshi's head and back. The scattergun leaps from his hands and clatters end over end across the front yard.

It's clear that Ichikawa has no comprehension of what's going on. He spits and growls and squeezes the trigger of his wheel-gun twice before the final copy of the stranger reaches him. Smiling like a wild dog, the stranger weaves between the bullets without so much as a flinch. He hits Ichikawa hard, driving an elbow down into wrist holding the pistol. Another chorus of splintering bone. The pistol drops. Ichikawa screams and rocks backward, clutching at the useless ruin of his hand.

Start to finish, it takes less than thirty seconds. Thirty seconds from the stranger's question about coffins to a yard full of mewling bodies.

A lovely picture: Ichikawa stands swaying and groaning, shattered forearm boneless against his side. Ken shuffles in the dirt like a dying animal, still clutching the barrel of his scattergun. Barely conscious, Hiroshi avoids dropping to the dirt only with the help of the stranger's steadying hand on his shoulder.

Three identical strangers prowl about the yard. Feral smiles play about their faces. They gaze down at the bandits with gleeful imperiousness.

Goddamn ninja magic. It's been more than a decade since Daigo's seen it in action. Every time he has, it's made him feel as if he's come unhooked from the moorings of the world. Today is no exception. Even as he can't look away, Daigo's head swims with something akin to childhood terror.

Of course, he really isn't at all surprised when the whole situation goes spectacularly, absurdly wrong.


	15. 15

**15**

How the stranger doesn't see it comin', Daigo can't even begin to guess.

Snarling and snapping like a rabid coyote, Ichikawa lets his undamaged hand fall to his side—and to the extra handgun strapped to his belt. His unsure fingers slide about its grip.

Daigo wonders if he should call out.

Abruptly, Hiroshi shouts, shudders, and attempts to throw a punch at his blonde tormentor. All eyes turn to follow the stranger-double as he twists about Hiroshi and puts him in an awkward headlock. Daigo hears dueling sets of growled, incomprehensible swearing.

Ichikawa draws.

Attention solidly on the fracas with Hiroshi, the double facing down Ichikawa has no time to react. The bullet takes him square in the forehead.

A miniature explosion rumbles over the pines. A gust of steam and smoke erupts across the yard. Where once the stranger's double stood is only rapidly dispersing vapor.

The stranger-double standing next to Ken goggles, as if he can't quite believe what just happened. He plants a heel, clearly meaning to take off at a sprint.

Behind him, Ken coughs and gags, "Yeah, boss! Get them bitches! I'm comin'!" He attempts to rise, lurching upward like an old man. Ken makes it no more than halfway before pitching face-first toward the hardpan.

The scattergun tilts backward even as Ken pitches forward. His thumb hooks down against the trigger. A brutal roar. Half of Ken's face shears off in a spray of pink and red. An eyeball goes soaring like a grisly party favor. Teeth and chunks of shattered jawbone hail across the yard.

On the doorstep, Daigo feels his extremities go numb.

Completely ignoring Ken's abrupt death, Ichikawa whips about and points his pistol at the stranger-double restraining Hiroshi. It takes a moment, but what's really about to happen finally dawns on the man. He flails an arm and sputters wetly.

"No no no wait please wait—"

In the fraction of a second it takes for Ichikawa to pull the trigger, the stranger departs in a series of soaring jumps. Two slugs meant for the traveler instead strike Hiroshi full in the chest, spinning him about like a top-heavy bottle. The bandit is dead before he hits the dirt. Another patch of yard grows brick-red.

As if let off a leash, the double standing next to Ken's corpse dashes hard at Ichikawa. An enraged howl follows him like a banner. Ichikawa whirls and fires. Even with a bum shootin' hand, one of the two shots slices through the double's shoulder.

A sound of thunder. Ashen fog billows. A brimstone reek sweeps outward. There follows an immaculate silence.


	16. 16

**16**

Naruto feels ill.

From his perch high in the pines, he watched with satisfaction as his shadow-clones made short work of the highwaymen. He _was _them, after all. He felt every crushed bone and mangled pressure point. Listened to every ragged breath and endured the lewd explosions of the firearms.

And then it all went wrong.

Two shadow clones dispelled. Two men dead. Needlessly, senselessly dead.

Something like hot glass is flowing behind Naruto's forehead and he can see only

**MURDER**

—and feel only

**RIP THEM ALL TO PIECES**

—and hear only

**BATHE IN THEIR BLOOD**

No. He shakes his head. The bright lance of rage dims. No. No no no. Get it together, man. You're better than this.

And yet, the voice of Kurama still echoes through his skull like far-off thunder. They might have to have a chat after this.

As the blood-fog thins and his eyes readjust, he sees that the last of the clones must have dispelled down in the yard. Only Ichikawa—still mewling and insensate—stands in the brushed space.

An unacceptable breach of attention and judgment. Any other nin—at any rank—could call him out on the carpet for such a sloppy job.

Ah, well. I'd say it's pretty clear that I'm the only nin out here. Time to clean this up.

Naruto sweeps his pack back onto his shoulders. He shimmies out onto a sturdy branch, finds an adequate balance point, and then steps away. Even the glorious sense of freefall has a tinge of anxiety. His feet touch the hardpan with the grace of a sprite.

The yard reeks of blood. Sand blows against his boots. In the center of it all sways Ichikawa, left hand still holding onto that odd multi-shot pistol. Naruto's never seen anything like it. The implications fill his gut with nauseous dread.

Raising his voice to a roar, Naruto says, "It didn't have to go down like this, man!"

Ichikawa turns to face him full-on. His eyes spin senselessly in their sockets. "The hell with ya'. G-goddamn ninja scum. Ya' brought this on yourself."

Naruto shrugs. He says, "I had it all planned out. Was just gonna . . . scare ya'. Beat you up a bit."

Ichikawa makes a sound that brings to mind a cornered animal. An angry, sawblade trill. The bandit begins to raise his pistol.

Naruto's entire body tenses. "I don't want to kill you," he says. "Don't make me kill you."

The highwayman breathes through his nostrils with such intensity that he sounds like he might hyperventilate. Sweat pours in rivulets across his face. His lips quiver, as if he's struggling to begin to say something. He never quite gets there.

Ichikawa's finger twitches toward the trigger.

Naruto closes his eyes. "Oh, fuck you," he breathes.

It doesn't take a Rasengan to do the work at hand. A dozen pressure points flare to enthusiastic purpose. All that's needed is a bit of concentrated chakra in the palm of his hand. A small, sable blade of pure intention. A quick, almost casual swipe.

Ichikawa's throat gives way in an explosive burst of red. His eyes roll up into his head and he falls, gun still clutched in his hand.

Naruto can feel cooling patches of blood dotting his forehead and nose. He's fairly certain some of it got in his beard. Gods, but he needs a laundry.

Finding himself alone, Naruto sidesteps and looks back over his shoulder. Dust sweeps upward from the churned yard. Atop the steps, the hideous little shopkeeper stares out as if he has been visited by the Shinju itself.

"My mistake," Naruto says. His voice is flat—nearly mordant. "Looks like you'll need three coffins, after all."


End file.
